:) Nothing in the world quite like it, is there? :)

For sure a 1000x times over

I feel like I know Tibbe, and I certainly do love him. This is music to my ears. I love your stories of Tibbe. Katie's face lights up when we are playing and walking, and I am told that my face does also just taking about her. She used to walk with me, always looking up at me, almost waiting for something. I finally asked Ilona what I was missing when I walked with her. She was used to Ilona always playing ball with her, and although I knew that, I thought I was missing some command. It took a year of walking together before she forgot about her ball and just enjoyed all of the sights and thrill of walking. She always loved it, but now it's even more wonderful for both of us. Our walks and play times are always special for us. Katie loves toys now, too, but she often just loves to sit on the floor with me, to give kisses or just spend time right next to me on her level.

Katie loves bouncing her ball under a radiator or one of her beds, and can sit for as long as I'm willing trying to use her paw to free the tiny ball. I wind up having to bend to get it a lot of the time, since it gets trapped where she can't get it, so we both get quite a workout. I will do anything to make her happy as long as it brings no harm to katie.

Katie sounds like a bundle of joy and such fun to have around your house and in your heart. Your love for her sings from your every word. Who couldn't love a beautiful, hardy, fun-loving, feisty, little terrier imp so cute they just own your soul, just like Katie girl, happy as a clam to be your best friend, cuddle, play and never giving up as long as there's anything left to do. Love that terrier dedication to determination to keep going until they finish the job. Tibbe's just the same in so many ways.

Plus, he's a black-hearted little overlord - just gets the biggest satisfaction out of anything I do for him that keeps me really working and busy 'doing' for him, the harder the better. The "Garfield" look he gets on his face while I'm down on all-fours searching under furniture for a toy or chewie, gathering all his toys and chewies up from where he places them all over the den and living room floors at the end of the day, getting up out of my warm bed into the cold, dead of night to take him outside, getting out his clean bowl, opening up, mixing his food, washing his bowls, refiling his water and demand kibble, is priceless!!! He just loves watching me to 'do' for him, the little toot. He'd have fit right in during feudalism.

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I love to read your posts Jeanie and to know that Tibbe is feeling better. He is definitely one really cute smart little Yorkie. My Spud is doing well on his Hills zd diet. It looks like rubber to me but he wolfs it down. There are some treats I bought at the vet that are little bone shaped and for dogs on the zd diet. Made by Hills. I had a little brown poodle once that had that horrible skin problem. Spent lots of money at the derm dr. He said put her on a venison diet so I got that food and she cleared up. Now for Tibbe I wouldn't feed that because of his liver issues but perhaps anyone else with the stink problem, it may help.
Prayers for you and darling Tibbe Hope to read that he is well again!

Thanks, Sandy, we're grateful for your prayers and hoping and praying things stay on this course with him. I know I've got to try some type of diet change but just am so worried about a tiny bit of meat making him very sick. I wonder how a vet nutritionist will get past that with him.

If Convenia is clearing up the problem then there most have been a major bacterial component.

Some veterinary nutritions do phone consults (Remillard, Wakshlag, maybe Freeman).

That's what the vet thought when she recommended it, I protested but she persuaded me and by the next day his odor was just gone. He's a little smelly today so I'll give him his Hexachlor bath this afternoon and check out Dr. Remillard. I'm so scared - no terrified - of trying him on a new diet but we've got to keep this yeast and allergy from coming back!

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What food will you give him. This hills zd is working for spud. I hope you will get positive results with Tibbes food.

I have a can or two of ZD in the cupboard - I think we tried that sometime last year or the year before - everything we've tried in the past has given him IBS symptoms of not eating, nausea, spitting up yellow bile all over the house(since he won't eat when he's sick, he doesn't actually vomit up food chunks - just bile), clinginess, lying around with big, sad eyes or standing in the floor with his head hanging down for long periods of time and eventually, he gets mucus in his stools and diarrhea. He jumps up suddenly as if he's got gas pains and his gut gurgles loudly during these bouts.

The first 3 or 4 years of his life he was able to eat any and everything - milk bones, could gradually change from one dog food to another, could eat pineapple, eggs, apple pieces, green beans, carrots, chicken, beef, and once in a while when I got pizza, he could eat a 1/2 teaspoon size of pepperoni or crust. But since he turned 3 1/2 or 4, everything made him sick until we started him on Hill I/D GI. But once he was diagnosed with MVD, we had to add hepatic to his diet and that's when the itching started. This past year that has gotten much worse to the point of even hot spots and now the yeast.

So, whatever the vet nutritionist tells me to try him on, that's what we'll try one more time, though my one vet is very worried meat will make him sick. I've got to look into Dr. Remillard but am just so scared, knowing what the past food changes have all brought - one to two weeks of his little life being turned upside down with suffering, my worrying, multiple vet visits, medicines.

I finally remembered to get the Apple Cider Vinegar and started him on that Thursday - slightly under 1/2 teaspoon in his drinking water bowl holding 1 1/4 cups of water. He's still doing well with his bad smell and hot spots being gone, his eyes maybe weeping a bit less, though it seemed like today he was scratching his underbelly a bit more than the 10 or so times he scratches daily.

Just an update on Tibbe. After the antibiotic shot the vet gave him, Tibbe's odor left completely for a while but slowly returned, not quite as bad but still pretty awful. Still the Hexachlor-K shampoo every 3 days kept it at bay just for those 3 days - by the 3rd he was very, very rank smelling again and still scratching some every day.

Lisa, your coconut oil & probiotics that you so kindly and generously sent arrived, were slowly begun and gradually increased and he's had both on his breakfast 5 or 6 mornings out of 7 every since. I just realized Tuesday when I was bathing Tibbe that he hadn't had bad odor for weeks now, no itching, no hotspots and is even able to now eat almost half his meal in the form of his Hill's L/D Hepatic kibble - whereas before, even adding one piece of hepatic kibble to his meal caused him to throw up and have loose stools for days - after 3 separate times of trying to switch from the canned to the kibble slowly.

His eyes had been pretty goopy, too(actually had pus in them a few times), something that started within two weeks after he was started on the Hill's L/D Hepatic canned food and why I wanted to change him to the hepatic kibble just to see if he's have less reactions to it, as the canned hepatic also made him itch within minutes of eating it. And I could never increase his canned hepatic to more than 1/4 of his meal without him start to itch quite a lot - up to 10 times a day or more. Then, he slowly developed the hair loss, worse itching, hot spots, then the bad, bad, bad skin odor and very pink skin.

Now, having changed from the canned to the kibble version of the hepatic diet, his eyes have very little drainage and he no longer itches or licks his paws soon after eating. And now that more of his meals are the hepatic diet, he's got more energy and verve than he's had in three or four years - he's totally back to being Tibbe the Toot 100% of the time and no more pink skin! He's absolutely running me ragged! It's been months and months since his last bout of N&V, lethargy, refusing food! You would never know this dog had a liver problem.

For the time being, I think I can only conclude that adding the coconut oil & the probiotics have had a startlingly positive effect on Tibbe's skin and GI problems and am thrilled to seemingly have him back as he was before, misery-free! :)

Way to go Tibbe! :)

I love Tibbe the Toot! I'm so thrilled that he is feeling so good. It sounds like he's keeping you very active and is also bringing you such joy. The two of you are so often in my thoughts and heart.

Thanks! It's so great when you see things beginning to look up!

He's back! No odor(!), no itching, hair loss, no vomiting, diarrhea, lethargy and he eats like a little pig and can eat more of the hepatic food now - all the while bouncing around full-time day and night again! Can't recall his last "down" day. I'm so grateful for that coconut oil and probiotics you sent him, Lisa. They seem to have helped him so much!